Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

One of Trinidad and To­ba­go's con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­perts, Se­nior Coun­sel Ken­neth Lal­la, says "the pro­lif­er­a­tion of is­sues" fac­ing Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is mak­ing "it threat­en­ing for a Prime Min­is­ter to want to sit there and con­tin­ue to take the crit­i­cisms" fac­ing him from the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion. He ex­plained that pos­si­bil­i­ties ex­ist­ed for Man­ning to go to Par­lia­ment on April 9�and an­nounce an elec­tion date be­fore the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against him could be de­bat­ed.

He added that it would not be im­prob­a­ble for a sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter such as Man­ning to call a snap gen­er­al elec­tion, al­though he had al­most three more years left�in his term. Lal­la said Man­ning ap­peared to be "in des­per­a­tion," and "it might be bet­ter for him to lose the elec­tion and al­low the Op­po­si­tion to get in­to gov­ern­ment, in which case the Op­po­si­tion would be faced with an emp­ty trea­sury. "A sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter may feel very em­bar­rassed to be sit­ting there and hav­ing all these state­ments and trails of al­le­ga­tions against him. They make it dif­fi­cult to gov­ern," Lal­la told the Trinidad Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day

af­ter­noon.

"These are the fac­tors which would weigh heav­i­ly on the gov­ern­ment, and, in­stead of re­sign­ing, you go to the polls, and prob­a­bly he would feel vin­di­cat­ed." Lal­la, for­mer Chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, point­ed out that Sec­tion 68 (1) of Trinidad and To­ba­go's Con­sti­tu­tion al­lowed: "The Pres­i­dent, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, may at any time pro­rogue or dis­solve Par­lia­ment." "The pro­lif­er­a­tion of is­sues at this par­tic­u­lar junc­ture makes it threat­en­ing for a Prime Min­is­ter to want to sit there and con­tin­ue to take the crit­i­cisms (and) the in­sults like you see when he goes on his walk­a­bouts," Lal­la said.

"The Prime Min­is­ter is very emo­tion­al about many things. He seems to be very con­cerned about the mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence that is like­ly to come up (in Par­lia­ment). "He may want to pre-empt that mo­tion of no-con­fi­dence." Lal­la said Man­ning would want to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to pro­rogue the Par­lia­ment, so that the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against the Prime Min­is­ter would lapse and would be of no con­se­quence. He in­di­cat­ed that Sec­tion 69 (1) of Trinidad and To­ba­go's Con­sti­tu­tion al­lowed: "A gen­er­al elec­tion of mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall be held at such time with­in three months af­ter every dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment, as the Pres­i­dent, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, shall ap­point.

"It would be very in­ter­est­ing to see what the out­come (of a snap gen­er­al elec­tion) would be–whether the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­new the life of the PNM for an­oth­er term, or whether they will demon­strate that ma­tu­ri­ty–po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty–and deal with is­sues rather than po­lar­i­sa­tion of vot­ing." Lal­la elab­o­rat­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go shared a his­to­ry of vot­ing on the ba­sis of racial po­lar­i­sa­tion. "There is some ev­i­dence that peo­ple re­al­ly are aware now of that fact, that of go­ing in that par­tic­u­lar way or in that par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tion (of race-based vot­ing) will spell dis­as­ter for the wel­fare of Trinidad and To­ba­go. "The coun­try is, at this par­tic­u­lar junc­tion, where they are over­ly con­cerned with the change of gov­ern­ment.

"They sim­ply are very dis­en­chant­ed with the modus operan­di of this gov­ern­ment, and the Gov­ern­ment, in my view–and I am sure in the peo­ple's view, too–are very dis­en­chant­ed. "They are very frus­trat­ed; They are de­prived of so many ameni­ties: one of them is a pri­ma­ry con­cern at this par­tic­u­lar time." Lal­la stressed that such fac­tors weighed "heav­i­ly in the minds of the elec­torate" against the gov­ern­ment. He added that the re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) and the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor would al­so have a "tremen­dous ef­fect on the pop­u­la­tion's per­cep­tion. "The re­port, from what we read in the press, is clear­ly heav­i­ly-weight­ed against the gov­ern­ment in­tegri­ty–po­lit­i­cal in­tegri­ty. "It re­veals ar­eas of gross in­com­pe­tence and the mis­man­age­ment of the peo­ple's busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly for de­fraud­ing and plun­der­ing the trea­sury and so on," Lal­la said.

"These are fac­tors which cer­tain­ly would weigh heav­i­ly."

Lal­la al­so raised con­cerns about Man­ning host­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion less than three years af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go went to the polls for one. "Why would he call an ear­ly elec­tion? "There must be some rea­son. It is very un­usu­al for a gov­ern­ment with three more years to go to cer­tain­ly de­cide to take an about-turn to go to the polls. "There cer­tain­ly would be fac­tors which would mo­ti­vate that or in­flu­ence that de­ci­sion. "The fac­tors con­fronting the gov­ern­ment at this stage are, in­deed, pro­fuse, and gov­ern­ment sens­es its un­pop­u­lar­i­ty. "It may be that the Prime Min­is­ter him­self would want to dis­pel the feel­ing that he is

un­pop­u­lar."

Trinidad and To­ba­go's Con­sti­tu­tion

68. (1) The Pres­i­dent, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, may at any time pro­rogue or dis­solve Par­lia­ment.

(2) Sub­ject to sub-sec­tion (3), Par­lia­ment, un­less soon­er dis­solved, shall con­tin­ue for five years from the date of its first sit­ting af­ter any dis­so­lu­tion, and shall then stand dis­solved.

(3) At any time when Trinidad and To­ba­go is at war, Par­lia­ment may ex­tend the pe­ri­od of five years spec­i­fied in sub-sec­tion (2) for not more than 12 months at a time; so how­ev­er that the life of Par­lia­ment shall net be ex­tend­ed un­der this sub-sec­tion for more than five years.

(4) Where, be­tween a dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment and the next en­su­ing gen­er­al elec­tion of mem­bers to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, an emer­gency aris­es of such a na­ture that in the opin­ion of the Prime Min­is­ter it is nec­es­sary for the two Hous­es to be sum­moned be­fore that gen­er­al elec­tion can be held, the Pres­i­dent, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, may sum­mon the two Hous­es of the pre­ced­ing Par­lia­ment, but the elec­tion of mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall pro­ceed and the Par­lia­ment that has been sum­moned shall, if not soon­er dis­solved, again stand dis­solved on the day on which the gen­er­al elec­tion is held.

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69 (1) A gen­er­al elec­tion of mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall be held at such time with­in three months af­ter every dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment as the Pres­i­dent, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, shall ap­point.

(2) As soon as prac­ti­ca­ble af­ter every gen­er­al elec­tion, the

Pres­i­dent shall pro­ceed un­der sec­tion 40 to the ap­point­ment of Sen­a­tors.

(3) Where a va­can­cy oc­curs in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with­in the first four years of the life of the Par­lia­ment a bye-elec­tion shall be held to fill such va­can­cy not lat­er than nine­ty days from the date of the an­nounce­ment by the Speak­er of the va­can­cy.